Martin stannard muriel spark biography

The compelling first biography of a twentieth-century literary enigma.

Born in 1918 into a working-class Edinburgh family, Muriel Spark became the epitome of literary chic and one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

Her autobiography, Curriculum Vitae, recorded her early years but politely blurred her darker moments: troubled relations with her family, a terrifying period of hallucinations, and disastrous affairs with the men she loved. At the age of nineteen, Spark left Scotland to get married in southern Rhodesia, only to divorce and escape back to Britain in 1944.

Her son returned in 1945 and was brought up by Spark’s parents while she established herself as a poet and critic in London.

Martin stannard muriel spark biography pdf

After converting to Catholicism in 1954, she began writing novels that propelled her into the literary stratosphere. These came to include Memento Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, and A Far Cry from Kensington.

With The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (196